CHAPTER 264 – EMERGENCE OF TERROR

“Tom it was your dream.” Rahmat said. “How am I supposed to interpret what it means?”

He shrugged. “I only experienced twenty seconds of your thinking. They’re your memories, not mine.”

“I have to admit it freaks me out. You were like in my head.”

Tom hesitated as he struggled to find the right words. “Yeah, I know. I hate it when it’s one of you guys. Alien races are difficult because of the incongruity of the experience, but sharing the thoughts of someone here is far worse because I hate breaching your privacy. I guess the only easy visions will be of human’s who are strangers.”

“Back on track.” Michael said, interrupting the musing. “I don’t think highlighting a moment is sufficient. Doesn’t your dream enhance aspects of the vision that the original person might not even have noticed? We have to solve why this vision is shared. Dismissing it as unsolvable seems foolish.”

“No one was talking about doing that.” Tom grumped. “When the dream started, I thought Rahmat was going to have some insight that would help me unlock my domain… but that didn’t happen… Instead he thought about what Phil said and the need for all of us to get more powerful.”

“Any sensations, emotions, subtle stuff you can tell us.” Michael prompted.

“No… this is what I keep telling you. His thoughts excluding those first moments, are the only thing I experienced.” He hastily raised a hand to prevent an interruption. “With Everlyn, the senses were enhanced. With Rahmat, that didn’t happen. The thoughts were all that mattered.”

“Was there anything strange about them? Delays? Choppiness?”

“Of course there were! They weren’t mine. They were Rahmat’s. It’s uncomfortable like shoving your sockless feet into shoes that are a size too small and then walking around. But if your question is were they altered by the dream’s abilities? I’m going to have to say no my skill doesn’t work like that. Yes, I’ll get back on track now,” he said hurriedly in response to Michael’s glare. “After he had concluded we collectively needed to become stronger, he debated the pros and cons between proceeding with the domain or not. In his head, he limited timeline consideration to only this trial.”

“You’re hiding something.”

“I’m not.”

“It’s okay Tom,” Rahmat smiled at him. “I don’t mind us talking about this. I was jealous of Tom’s progress and wanted to match him.”

“That too.” he admitted. “But as I said there were no enhancements of any emotions.”

“This is the problem. You’re not giving us all the information. The exact sequence might be important.”

“No, Michael. The skill doesn’t work that way. I experience a moment in history.” Tom sighed, defeated. “We’re looking at this too deeply. Rahmat? You said you had decided by this morning. Correct?”

“Yes, I was going to focus on something other than my domain.” He sounded slightly unsure of himself, like Tom’s dream had thrown that into doubt.

“So, if my dream was to serve a purpose.” Tom didn’t need to finish the sentence because realisation had dawned on the other man’s face.

“If it had a point, then it means my initial conclusion was wrong. It didn’t need to reinforce the change because doing nothing would have been sufficient for me to remain on that course.”

“Exactly.”

Rahmat was grinning, his eyes sparkling. “Which means the spear domain is important to our future.”

“Presumably.”

White teeth flashed. “Which suggests I can do it. It’s confirmation if I keep going I’ll get a domain!” Before Tom could do anything. He was being hugged. “Thank you, thank you.”

“I didn’t do anything.” Tom complained, but the other man could not be persuaded to let go for a good ten awkward seconds.

When he had finished breakfast, he set about upgrading his golem. There were several components that were on his list to improve, but he was keen to bank wins. If he jumped straight to the complex pieces of the build, the chance of failure was too high. After considering the various options, they had decided collectively that upgrading the tier one mana engine would get the most immediate improvement with a high likely hood of success. While the golem generally kept pace with them, it was only because it was not being called upon to fight regularly and their progress was very stop and start. Bumping up its natural mana regeneration could only be a positive.

In preparation for the attempt, he pulled the bag of components out of his soul storage. The simple cloth design folded out to reveal its contents. There were around ten thousand credits’ worth in the variety of precious metals and semi-precious crystals that were now visible. The hope was that they would be useful to help build out the tier one engine he planned on improving.

The others knew his plan, so they gathered around him, ready to lend their mana and expertise as he needed it.

“Will it answer this time?” Michael asked.

Tom shrugged.

The intelligence behind the boon had refused his request for help twice yesterday. When he had formed the link, he had felt how focused it was on someone else’s problem and, a moment later, had been summarily rebuffed. He had always been aware intellectually at least that the downside existed, but he had assumed that it was one of those warnings people put up for legal reasons, but you could safely ignore.. It looked like he was wrong, but from what he understood of balance the restriction was probably a good thing. The inconsistency in availability was what allowed it to be so powerful.

“Please work,” he whispered and triggered the threshold benefit and once more, the connection between him and the intelligence that guided the bonus snapped into existence.

It was still involved in the same project. He could sense the same complex warding spells as previously. The instant he sensed those spell forms, he expected to be rejected, but surprisingly the intellect chose to send a fraction of its focus towards him. In the trial miles away from anyone, the world seemed to come to a standstill while that fragment examined him, and then the rest of the scene; the golem, the miscellaneous pieces on the cloth in front of him and, of course, the group gathered to help him.

The assessment only took an instant. Then it made its decision and power surged into the ring on his finger and there was a flood of information into his brain and then as fast as its presence had appeared it was gone.

No judgement, just help.

“It responded didn’t it.” Michael whispered.

Tom ignored him because he was already focused on following the list that he had been given and what the outcome was going to be. The upgrade would not be too a tier two mana engine, but to be honest he had expected that. But the exercise would not be wasteful. Providing he delivered and there was nothing in the instructions that troubled him the output of the engine would be doubled and it would receive an overclock function to briefly put out an output equivalent to the higher graded engine.

Then, in the future, with a secondary use of the threshold benefit, he could create a proper tier two engine.

He threw himself into the crafting. Snapping commands and burning through the materials, he had been gifted. Almost six thousand mana had been pumped into his ring and he used it to bridge the difficult steps with overwhelming power as opposed to relying on finesse like it often forced him to do.

He finished the directions and restarted the engine.

For some reason Tom was ridiculously pleased with how successful the restart had gone. He had done it all by himself. The golem’s spell form closed up immediately once he was finished and obscured the engine. Technically, he hadn’t had the opportunity to confirm that his tinkering had been successful, but there was no need. He would have noticed if the rebuild had gone awry and it hadn’t. Everything had gone perfectly. Later, when he summoned the elemental, he would get it to check.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

With that done, they moved out.

This was the fourth day in the zone. The fights were routine, but they were going too slowly. “Is there anyway we can hurry up?”

“Not without taking undue risks.” Michael told him. “We’re all aware of the timelines. We discussed it last night while you were sleeping. This zone will take a full four days. Hopefully, the next one will only be three, which will give us enough time to save the healers.”

There was nothing Tom could say to dispute that, and all he could do was to continue doing what they planned. Rahmat spotted some saplings that implied that the snow was not a year round occurrence. He hacked into them and, before he could protest too much, they had constructed a makeshift sled for Tom to lie down upon. They strapped it on the golem, piled furs on top of it, and he forced himself to sleep.

He slumbered fitfully.

Thankfully, there were no sudden alarming dreams and when he woke up, he had to admit that he had needed the extra rest.

“That’s it.” Thor yelled gleefully. “We’ve finished the bloody place. I can’t wait to find somewhere warmer.”

Around him, the others were ducking into their system room to check their notifications. When it was his turn, Tom did the same.

Congratulations, your team has collected 120 living ice drops.

Your team has been awarded 1,280,000 experience.

Your contribution is assessed at 1.6%.

Experience awarded 21,000 minus 18,900 due to experience cap for a grand total of 2,100.

Tom frowned at the one point six percent contribution. He figured that high result either had something to do with proximity, he had been nearby when the drops had been collected or those couple of occasions where he had been forced to intervene had been deemed to be vital.

“Tom, what were your numbers?”

He told Michael straight out.

The healer looked thoughtful. “This was a good zone. We got just under three million experience between all of us once we factor in monster kills. Anyone close to the experience cap now.”

Everlyn raised her hand. “I’ll pull back a little. I doubt I’ll hit it in the next zone, but it’ll be close. With some proactive management, there won’t be any danger.”

Once more, the connection between zones was a long wide and high tunnel. Everlyn led them through it. They found the door to the next zone.

This time, they did not go through it.

“Ok, we’ll rest here for six hours before we head in.” Everlyn told them.

Tom offered to take a watch, but was promptly refused. The plan was a single guard and even that was probably overdoing it with the rituals that Harry had put down.

Soon enough, he was asleep once more.

He was in the mind of a human once more and it took him only a few seconds to work out that this was the same crafter who had been his eyes and ears when he had discovered Selena’s squad’s plot.

The connection was different this time from the first. It felt like the outside world was beating in on him. A fuzziness between him and the person he was in. All the sensations in the body were more distant than usual and not synced perfectly together.

Tom struggled to focus, despite all of his attempts to push through the disconcerting effect.

The crafter was creating another one of his stun artefacts and hating every moment he spent infusing power into it. He knew how useful the artefact would be and that it was the pinnacle of what he could currently craft, but working on this was a travesty and betrayal of his potential. He had chosen the combination of traits and supporting skills to craft more than one type of thing. It was supposed to be used as part of a larger team. His power was designed to take a temporary effect and then either refine its power to enhance it or to make it more repeatable.

The dream shattered and left Tom with a burning sensation in his mind and, unlike usual he snapped awake.

Toni, who was on guard jumped to her feet. He realised she was about to wake everyone. Despite the blinding headache, he had the presence of mind to put a finger to his lips.

That dream… It was interesting but the headache it had generated a lot less so. They had clearly got their hands on an ability or item that was designed to stop his probing. It wasn’t perfect, but Tom suspected every dream he had to have of them would leave him with this pain.

He pumped Touch Heal through him and within a minute, the headache had vanished.

Toni still appeared agitated, so he waved her away and settled down to sleep.

In the morning, they entered the next zone. It was thankfully more temperature, and they set about converting the sled into a cart.

Once that was done, he spent the time napping and walking beside them. A day and a half passed, and they were on track to complete it in three days like their aim.

Straight after lunch, he settled down to sleep. He had been getting the occasional true dreams but nothing material just enough to track where the different parties were.

The dream appeared and mentally he cursed the skill when he realised who’s mind he was in.

This time, he was seeing the world through Everlyn’s eyes. It was a dirty creek with a pool of water at the bottom of a three metre lightly sloped bank. Everlyn’s eyes saw nothing exceptional, but her skills were enhanced by the True Dream, and he could see the cave hidden underneath the still water.

A thrill of excitement went through him. It had to be a treasure cave. There was no other explanation of why he would dream of it now.

Desperately, he recorded other noticeable features. A tree with weirdly infrequent branches and a light green bark. Another rock that was almost purple.

Then he woke up.

“Everlyn.” He called out immediately via party chat when he realised she was not nearby.

“Yes.”

He recounted everything he had seen.

“I know the spot.” She said quietly. “It’s about ten minutes’ run behind us. Do we all need to be there or do you think I can check it out myself?”

The entire team’s eyes were on Tom and not one of them expressed an opinion. He had to answer the question himself. “I assume you’ll be able to extract yourself safely if there is a nasty surprise down there.”

“Extract myself, yes. Beat anything nasty, maybe not.”

“Do you want us to come back with you?”

There was a slight pause. “No. I have enough boost saved up that nothing in a rank sixteen zone should be able to touch me. You guys keep going forward.”

Over twenty minutes passed and Tom anxiously watched the party chat, but it didn’t activate because Everlyn was out of range.

The team ahead of him fought some of the blue birds, which was their target to kill, and Tom kept working on his control over the armour. He was getting better through repetition, but there had been no epiphanies and he couldn’t even think of a method to apply fate in a way to help him.

“I love your skill, Tom,” Everlyn gushed suddenly over the party chat. “It was a treasure room, no enemies. Thor, you need to tell the others. I have no idea how many of these we must have missed.”

“And what did you get?” Michael asked.

“A tailored loot portal.” She almost squealed as she said it. “Single item and single use, unfortunately. The object was a Tier four - Gloves of Ranger Druid.”

There was silence from everyone.

“Class tailored. That’s a good reward.” Rahmat said finally.

“No need for anyone to get jealous. Future ones will be dedicated to those who haven’t got any yet. Now that I know about them, I’m confident I can locate them.”

“We should check to see if the treasure room is visible on those tiles.” Keikain said thoughtfully.

“I’ll find out.” Everlyn answered immediately.

About ten minutes later, she caught up to them. She was holding a memory crystal. “We can find the treasure through these. There’s a symbol that shows it, but it’s only on thirty percent of the maps.”

“Which means we can target zones with the treasure rooms.” Michael said, in realisation. “Find them strategically.”

“Exactly.” Everlyn agreed. “We’ll discuss whether that changes our route in ring seven tonight. For now, I need to hunt.”

She disappeared, and Tom went to sleep again. They continued on through the zone and settled down for the night. On his count, there were three and a half days before the outer layer collapsed. It would give them two and a half days to save the healers, because this zone would only take one more day.

It should be enough, but Tom wouldn’t be surprised if he needed to become more active. He settled down to sleep. The continuous naps meant he wasn’t even that tired.

He slept peacefully, and then a True Dream roared into existence. It was strong, insistent, with an edge of manic energy to it.

He found himself in a new body and he recognised it immediately. It was the terror insect race and the same champion from last time.

It was alive with emotion. Thrumming with energy stemming from how excited it was. Joy coursed through it because finally their trait had found one. Finally he was going to get to kill another competitor representative.

They were flying toward it. Luckily, this zone was one of the ones that allowed flight so they could get there fast. If he had of been forced to scamper along the ground, he was sure the anticipation over the longer period would have caused him to regurgitate everywhere. He would have been reduced to being no better than a larval.

The target came into sight. Jogging from tree to tree with stealth skills that might have been effective if the trait hadn’t already found them.

The senses of the insect differed from what he was used to, but they allowed Tom to piece together what the insect seeing.

Despite the alien lens over everything, all species had a way to track how something filled space. The target had two legs, arms, and possessed bipedal motion…

Glee ran through the insect. It would kill it slowly and then consume its body. It would be like the rapture it experienced when it’s GOD spoke to it.

It was getting closer and the only regret was there was only one of it and that it was weak. But breaking weak could be fun.

Tom had been aware of this possibility. He had known that the insects might hunt for pleasure… but he hadn’t expected this situation now and as for the things the mind was imagining… The breaking, the torturing, the simple pleasure it would bring… it was beyond horrific. The insect and its entire race were twisted to a point of cruelty that made no sense to Tom. He kept asking himself how such a cesspool of an ethical framework could have developed naturally. Where was the competitive advantage?

There was more detail coming through. The weapon the man was carrying, the abilities being used, the zone he was in.

Tom suddenly knew who it was.

The dream shattered in response to his spike of alarm and he woke up with a gasp with his weapon in his hands.

Horror and shock filled him.